I was in
the process of writing to congratulate you on your election as the leader
of the Liberal Party.

In this
context, I have just heard a recording of your interview with Mr. Jason Caron
of the CJPAC and Canada Israel Committee. I was surprised and alarmed at some of
the statements you made in the interview. Thus, I feel, as a Canadian, that it
is my responsibility to bring to your attention some of the facts you
appear to overlook and which you, as the future prime minister of Canada, ought to be aware of.

You express
praise for Israel and describe it as a true
democracy. The facts on the ground are contrary to that, as affirmed by
prominent Israeli human rights workers and thinkers. Unfortunately, Israeli democracy and human rights
practices are selective. The noted Israeli author, MaximeGhilan, stated in an editorial in the Feb.
1983 issue of the Paris-based magazine, Israel and Palestine, :"Israel is a Western-type democracy for Jews only......Arabs, who
are citizens of the state of Israel are less fortunate...They are not
granted equal economic priviliges, are prevented from
access to public housing and loans given only 'to those who served in the IDF
and allied services', bodies into which most Israeli Arabs are not admitted.
Finally, Israeli Arab workers are economically discriminated against,
receiving lower pay than their Jewish counterparts.....Arabs in the
territories, conquered by Israel since 1967, have no rights whatsoever. Their children
are shot. beaten up, jailed; their young men
assassinated. Their women are brutalised. Their cars
are wantonly destroyed by hammer and bomb. Their elected mayors and leaders are
deposed......Their politicians are often deported. Foreign settlers jeer at
them, provoke them, squat in their homes and on their lands. International law,
concerning the behaviour of conquerors in conquered
land, is opely flouted."

The
lateProfessor Israel Shahak,
a Holocaust survivor and chairman of the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights, summed it up accurately in his
statement: "It is my considered
opinion that the state of Israel is a racist state in the full
meaning of this term. In this state, people are discriminated against, in the
most permanent and legal way and in the most important areas of life, only
because of their origin. This racist discrimination began in Zionism and is
carried today mainly in co-operation with the institutions of the Zionist
movement."
(Quote taken from The Racist Nature of Zionism and of the Zionist State of
Israel, an article published in Pi-Haaton, the weekly newspaper of the
students of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Nov. 5, 1975.)

Derek Tozer, an Israeli thinker, stated: "The official policy of the government (of Israel) is unequivocal. Arabs, like the
Jews in Nazi Germany, are officially class
B citizens, a fact which is recorded on their identity cards."

The predicament of Israels roughly 1.2 million Arab citizens is evident,
as the 2003 Israeli State Committee of
Inquiry made clear: "They
suffer systemic discrimination in employment, housing and education, and lack
of equal access to state resources."

Israels"Nationality and Entering to Israel Law", passed by the cabinet in 2002, and
reaffirmed annually by the Knesset, and recently, May 2006,
reaffirmed by a wide margin in the Knesset, denies any Arab Israeli
citizen the right to reside in Israel with his/her spouse if they marry a
Palestinian. Amnesty International and
Human Rights Watch have condemned the law as racist, and Israel-based BTselem human rights group, claims that it contravenes
the Israeli Basic Law.

You go on to describe
Hezbollah as a "terrorist militia." It is relevant to bring to your
attention that Hezbollah came into being in response to the Israeli invasion of
Lebanon and occupation of South Lebanon, in 1982, that brought about the
killing of 20,000 Palestinian and Lebanese civilians. It was the national
military resistance by hezbollah that forced Israel to withdraw from Lebanon in May 2000, after 22 years of
illegal occupation, that followed the first war of aggression
against Lebanon in March 1978, and remained in
defiance of international law and Security Council resolution #425, of March
19, 1978.

The recent
Israeli attack on Lebanon is claimed to be in response to the
capture by Hezbollah, on July 12, of 2 Israeli soldiers in a military
encounter. Nothing is mentioned of the fact that Israel has kidnapped and continues to hold
for decades over 10,000 Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners. However, the facts,
as reported by the noted journalist Seymour Hersh in
The New Yorker, Aug. 21, 2006, indicate that this attack on Lebanon was planned and approved by the
White House many months before the capture of the Israeli soldiers. The
shelling by Hezbollah came after the
indiscriminate Israeli bombardment and invasion of South Lebanon that brought about the killing of
1,200 civilians and the destruction of the infrastructure of South Lebanon and demolition of many towns and
villages and thousands of homes. Israeli
war crimes included the firing of four million cluster bombs. UN reports
indicate that one million of these bombs have failed to explode and continue to
kill innocent civilians. As well, they have severely injured two
international bomb experts who were working to dismantle these criminal
weapons. This is confirmed by the Israeli daily,Haaretz, Nov. 24, 2006. This is what our current prime
minister, Mr. Harper, called "proportionate
response."

You go on to describe the
democratically elected Hamas as a terrorist organisation. Similarly, Hamas
came into being as a natural national resistance movement against an illegal
brutal Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory that has been allowed
to stand for 39 years, in defiance of international law and repeated Security
Council and UNGA resolutions. The brutal actions of this illegal occupation
include extra-judicial assassination, torture of prisoners and detention of
prisoners without charge or trial, demolition of thousands of homes and
expropriation of property for the creation of illegal colonies [settlements].
All these practices are in violation of virtually every article of the Fourth
Geneva Convention, and are war crimes, as defined by international law, and
have been condemned by all international human rights groups, including Amnesty
International, Human Rights Watch and Israeli human rights groups, including B'Tselem.

Do I need to remind you
that the UN Charter and international law entitles all peoples, under foreign
occupation, to resist the occupation. We all
applauded French and other European resistance movements in their action
against the illegal Nazi occupation of their land.

It may be of interest to
you that terrorism was introduced in the Middle East by leaders of the Zionist movement,
and continues to be practiced by Israel. I will forward to you separately
an article that outlines briefly some of the documented acts of Israeli
terrorism.

You criticise
the actions of the UN Human Rights Council and its resolutions against Israel. The repeated condemnation by the
overwhelming majority of the Council members is a direct result of the continuing Israeli vioalation
of the human rights of Palestinians, which I referred to above.

Finally, Mr. Dion, it is our hope that our government and political
leaders take note of the facts on the ground in the Middle East and begin to abide by the UN
Charter and internatioal law that Canada claims to uphold. Israel must not be allowed to remain above
international, regardless of the power of its lobbies.

Thank you for your
attention and I look forward to hearing your response to my message, and hope
you will listen to the Palestinian side of this conflict and truly understand
the essence of this human tragedy that the Palestinian people have been
subjected to.